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Bill Ryan caught the proper spirit of the Gadsden flag back in 2001 after the World Trade Center attacks. For REISMAN column Thursday, May 9, 2013

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After the Boston Marathon bomb attack I urged the mayor and Democratic majority on the New Rochelle City Council to return the Gadsden flag to the city-owned armory property in a gesture of unity against terrorism.

Asking politicians to act big is a lot to ask.

Intuitively, I knew they would resist the idea — and so far they have.

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of American history should recognize the Gadsden flag. It’s the banner with the coiled rattlesnake and the motto, “Don’t Tread on Me.”

The snake and motto are often set against a yellow field. However, other varieties include the red, white and blue features of the traditional American flag.

Named after its creator, Christopher Gadsden, a Revolutionary War general, the flag served a noble purpose against the British in 1776 and has stood as a symbol of freedom ever since.

Who can dispute that patriotic sentiment? Well, we live in a polarized age. The vigilant forces of political correctness will object to the most innocuous things, and that is what happened in New Rochelle in March when a group of veterans ceremoniously raised the Gadsden flag in front of the vacant armory on Main Street.

The city almost immediately had the flag taken down on the grounds that it could be interpreted as being in political sympathy with the conservative Tea Party movement. Evidently, the Tea Party adopted the flag in 2004 — a fact that many did not know, but which seems trivial in light of the flag’s distinguished history. In any case, the veterans steadfastly claim they embraced the flag out of national pride.

Ron Tocci, a veteran and former assemblyman from New Rochelle, recently reiterated this point on my “High Noon” radio program.

“There was no intention in any way to identify it with the Tea Party,” he said.

Mayor Noam Bramson’s position is pretty much the slippery slope argument — that the property in question is publicly owned and that putting up an unauthorized flag on it will set a bad precedent, etc., etc. I don’t think anybody is really buying that —least of all the veterans who make no bones about their dislike for Bramson, despite his overall popularity in a heavily Democratic city.

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Bramson, who is running for county executive, probably believes he won’t get their vote no matter what he does. They’re in the early stages of suing him, with the assistance of the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center.

The mayor has expressed annoyance that the matter has become a national story when there are supposedly more important issues at hand.

That’s why I offered a piece of advice in an April 18 column.

I said Bramson and his council cohorts could defuse the situation by simply restoring the Gadsden flag with a message that the flag is not representative of any one faction or special interest, but the standard around which all Americans can rally in defiance against those who would destroy us.

In other words, he could rise above it all and reclaim the flag’s true meaning.

As a sentiment, this would not be unprecedented. Right after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, none other than Bill Ryan adopted the Gadsden flag during his re-election campaign for county legislator.

The White Plains Democrat printed cards that depicted the familiar sidewinder and slogan that was slightly altered to say, “Don’t Tread on America.”

Ryan told me the other day that the cards included a history of the flag.

“Of course, I didn’t associate it with the Tea Party, which didn’t exist then,” he said. “The Tea Party in my view is very destructive to America.

“I associated the flag with the strength of America and the spirit of America.”

Ryan, who vied for the party nomination to run for county executive but lost to Bramson, said he was unfamiliar with the flag controversy in New Rochelle and did not offer an opinion about it.

However, he did agree that 12 years after 9/11 and less than a month after Boston, terrorism remains a real and obvious threat.

This was evidenced by the guardhouse and other security measures he noticed on a recent walk to the Kensico Dam in Valhalla.

“And it’s all to protect the dam from a terrorist attack,” he said. “So the reminders are all around us. We’re a great country and we’re peace loving. But the thing is — attack us and you do so at your peril.”